Educational Science

Here's How Smoke from California Wildfires Affects the Human Body

As California's Camp Fire continues to burn and the smoke spreads across a large swath of the U.S., experts say that the biggest health danger from the smoke comes from the particulate matter that it contains. Indeed, in terms of harm to human health, the principal exposure from wildfire smoke...

Here's Why the Ventura Wildfire Is So Explosive

A disastrous combination of tinder-dry vegetation, the strongest Santa Ana winds in a decade and a spark caused a wildfire to explode in Ventura County, California, north of Los Angeles, overnight Monday (Dec. 4). Less than 24 hours later, the blaze had torn through more than 45,000 acres and destroyed...

Gusting winds in northern California are helping the spread of the Kincade fire, as shown in a new animation from NASA. Meanwhile, Maxar Technologies captured infrared images the fire using its suite of Earth-observing satellites. The winds, which are known as Diablo winds, have reached speeds as high as 96...

California Wildfires Signal the Arrival of a Planetary Fire Age

Another autumn, more fires, more refugees and incinerated homes. For California, flames have become the colors of fall. Free-burning fire is the proximate provocation for the havoc, since its ember storms are engulfing landscapes. But in the hands of humans, combustion is also the deeper cause. Modern societies are burning...

Mendocino Wildfire Becomes California's Largest, and It's Still Growing

California is battling its largest wildfire ever recorded, along with 15 other major ones across the state. The Mendocino Complex Fire is actually two separate fires, both of which began burning in late July: the Ranch Fire and the River Fire. They haven't merged yet, but they are close enough...

California's Spreading Wildfires: What Are Katabatic Winds?

While the cause of 21 separate wildfires blazing across eight counties in northern California remains unknown, their rapid spread is tragically familiar. Many of California's fiercest wildfires occur in September and October, owed in part to a powerful seasonal weather pattern known as katabatic winds — an annual threat that...

A Whole Lot of the Planet Is on Fire Right Now

A whole lot of planet Earth is burning right now. In the U.S., record-setting wildfires in Western states dominate the headlines. But as a new image released by NASA's Worldview satellite imagery collection reveals, those fires represent just a fraction of the total portion of the planet that's dominated by...

Raging Southern California Wildfires Seen from Space (Photos)

Satellite photos show just how big and destructive the Southern California wildfires have become. A dramatic image captured Tuesday (Dec. 5) by the European Space Agency's Sentinel-2 spacecraft, for example, reveals a massive burn scar just east of the city of Ventura, along with areas of active fires. Smoke billows...

California Wildfires Rage in Astronaut Photos from the Space Station

The wildfires raging across California are a sight to behold from 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have taken dramatic new photos of the dangerous and destructive blazes, which are blackening huge swaths of the Golden State and throwing off smoke that billows...

In Photos: Devastating Wildfires in California

The Camp Fire (Image credit: NASA Worldview, Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS))In the early morning of Nov. 8, 2018, a wildfire broke out just outside Paradise, California, engulfing the town in black smoke. The town's 30,000 or so residents were quickly evacuated, according to NASA's Earth Observatory....